Iranian state media airs video said to disprove U.S. report of downed drone

Trump said Thursday that an American warship shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after it had flown within 900 meters of the vessel

Reuters |
Jul. 19, 2019 | 7:12 PM
|
1

Iran's state television on Friday aired footage it said disproved U.S. President Donald Trump's assertion that the U.S. Navy has destroyed an Iranian drone in the Gulf.

The video published by the Revolutionary Guards showed aerial views of warships. The television station said the drone had captured the footage and timing notations showed the drone was still filming after Washington said it had been downed in the Strait of Hormuz.

In response to the video, Trump affirmed that he is confident U.S. forces shot down the Iranian drone off Iran's southern coast, after Iran denied losing any of its unmanned aircraft over the Gulf.

On Thursday, Trump said that the drone had flown to within 1,000 yards (900 meters) of the U.S. warship Boxer and had ignored "multiple calls to stand down".

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi denied such claims on Friday. "We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else. I am worried that USS Boxer has shot down their own UAS [Unmanned Aerial System] by mistake!," Araqchi said on Twitter, referring to a U.S. warship in the strategic waterway.

The incident happened with tensions running high between Iran and the United States over President Donald Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal.

Last month, Iran downed a U.S. drone and escalation between the sides had raised concerns the two countries might go to war. The U.S. has been deploying military assets, such as the Boxer, to the region.